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Friday, August 26, 2011

BORP? X

I'm playing in the 47th Berks and Bucks chess congress this weekend. Three days, two rounds a day and a rather generous time control of 40 moves in two hours plus half an hour to complete the game. That's a lot of chessing.

It's funny. I only played at Sunningdale and Gatwick to get some experience of the 'game in 90 plus 30 seconds per move' time control before going to Benasque and now, 21 games later, I find myself wondering what it's going to be like playing a tournament where you get so much time and, come what may, that's your lot.

Swings and roundabouts? Much of a muchness? A bit of both maybe?

This is your choice today:

incremental time controls

or,

x moves in y minutes plus z to finish

You're deciding for every game that will ever be played by anybody in any situation - league or tournament, rapid-play or long-play - from now until the end of time. Choose wisely.

10.00 am to 3pm, 3.30p to 8.30 pm is a tight enough turnaround as it is, without throwing Arkell length games into the equation. So for two rounds a day, the case for fixed limits remains as it does for evening chess from 7.30pm onwards.

e2-e4 events have two rounds a day and go for a game in 90 + 30 seconds a move time control. Games start at 10am and 3pm.

Based on the two events I've played it seems to work out ok and presumably even if in theory a morning game could go on for hours and seriously delay the afternoon game it must be unproblematic in practice otherwise it would have changed.

You can't have incremental for venues where you get kicked out of at a certain time so fixed would be my choice.I haven't played incremental for quite some time but enjoyed it when I played in Vienna. Was defending a bishop ending a pawn down where it could have gone on for well over a hundred moves if he was trying to run my clock down but that didn't work with incremental as I was gaining time on most moves. Not that he seemed to be trying this tactic (perhaps because it was incremental).Andrew

Just played G90 + 30 in a norm tournament against a 2318 average and it was horrible. Consistently got outplayed in mutual time trouble around move 40. Not that that's a fault of the time control, but it definitely favours the more experienced player, rather than necessarily the stronger one.

Pardubice had G120 + 30 which at least allowed games to reach an ending before the fidgeting began.